today. there's lots more ahead. "cnn newsroom" continues right now with ashleigh banfield, hey, ashlei ashleigh. >> hi, deb. thank so much, everyone. nice to see you. 11:00 on the east coast, 8:00 a.m. on the west coast. let's start here. big news, the white house putting an offer out there on the table, a plan to avoid the fiscal cliff and break the stalemate. the treasury secretary tim geithner himself making the rounds on capitol hill, presenting the details. last night, in fact, even. in the suvs returning to the white house after his meetings with congressional leaders, the press is there. that's an important meeting, folks, the democrats are emphasizing. this, however, is only a first offer. so, with that how was it received? it was received with a cacophony of laughter, essentially. the republicans hated it. there's really no other way to say it. they stopped at the request for $1.6 trillion in new tax

revenue, which probably gives us a bit more context to house speaker john boehner's response to all of this yesterday. >> no substantive progress has been made in the talks between the white house and the house over the last two weeks. >> so, let's not forget here just how close we are to this cliff. cliff day is 32 days away. you might say we're kind of teetering, regardless of what the republicans think, regardless of how loud they may be laughing, the president is awalking. he's taking this pitch on the road, and he is heading as we speak to a suburb in philadelphia to tour a toy factory and give a speech there. but this is not just your average factory. it's not just your average tour. it's not your normal glad-handing here. in fact, the republicans are saying this is just president obama campaigning. they're angry that he's off selling this proposal to the public instead of sitting down at the table with them and negotiating back in washington. it's a great shot, though, to

watch marine one take off regardless of how you feel about it. dan lothian gets to watch it's a regular basis. >> reporter: i do. >> he's on the lawn right now. you did. he's off and running and a lot of people are angry about it, dan, saying it's not the time to sell it to the public. that's a tactic. but let's get to the nuts and bolts about it. $1.6 trillion in new taxes, it doesn't ever sit well, but there are versions of this, there are elements to it. break it down. >> reporter: right, $1.6 trillion new taxes in over 10 years and republicans saying they're surprised by this because they felt that what the president was putting out there was half of that, and just a short time ago josh ernest, a deputy white house spokesman in a gaggle of reporters that he's saying he's surprised that republicans are surprised. but i'll break it down for you, timothy geithner breaking it down on capitol hill yesterday, in addition to the $1.6 trillion, closing loopholes and limiting deductions is a way to bring in more revenue and raising estate taxes to 2009

levels and finally increasing capital gains and dividends taxes. again, the white house seeing this as sort of the first, the opening bid, if you will. as you know, when you're negotiating, you come out very aggressive. the other side counters and then you find some common ground somewhere in the middle. we've seen this kind of posturing in the past over the last four years where sometimes there's some optimism, they will get things done and it gets like we see it now where they're very far apart and they're able to come together, everyone is hoping they can do that before the end of the year. >> yeah, but the rhetoric doesn't sound good right now, that's for sure. what -- along with the $1.6 trillion sticker shock, what were the overtures being made by the president with this proposal? what was he prepared to give? >> reporter: that's right. well, 50 -- he's also talking about $50 billion in new stimulus and then the things that republicans have been really calling for is to put things, like, entitlements on the table. the president has been open to that in the past, and that's part of this as well, to the

tune of $40 billion in stimulus and medicare and so forth. but no specifics as to exactly how they will come up with that number. again, republicans as you pointed out just a few minutes ago are not happy by this at all. john boehner saying that the two sides are no closer than they were two weeks ago and saying that democrats really need to get serious about negotiating here. this could all be a tactic. maybe it isn't as far apart as it appears, but publicly at least it seems like there's a lot of distance before they can get a deal here. >> i'll say. all right, dan lothian, thank you for that. do appreciate it. want to head to the united nations now something you consider one heck of a historic vote. take a look. >> the voting has been completed. please lock the machine. >> that is what it looks like when there's official approval to upgrade a member like this member, the palestinian authority, at the united nations.

so, the palestinian authority now has a non-member observer status state. so, that is the same status held by the vatican, but it is not the same status that the united states enjoys. it is still a rung away from that. so, what exactly does it mean? just how good is it? is it symbolic? is it political? let's bring in our senior u.n. correspondent richard ross. this is an overwhelmingly vote and the united states voted against from elevating the palestinian authority and the state of palestine to this status, without question the united states is in the minority here. why? >> well, because the u.s. believes and has consistently believed for decades that only direct peace talks between israel and the palestinians can achieve a long lasting settlement. not through international organizations such as the united nations. though, the u.n. could eventually be helpful once there is a peace.

the united states, canada, and very few others here voted in the negative. the palestinians didn't get all the european support they wanted. this morning actually canada is recalling some of its ambassa r ambassadors from new york and in the middle east for consultations probably for security reasons. canada gave a very public opposition speech before this vote. but the -- you mentioned is it symbolic, is it political, what are the significance -- what is it? it could be all of it, because now the palestinians could join international organizations and treaties such as the international criminal court and perhaps challenge and go after and accuse israel for war crimes for any future actions, maybe join aviation treaties, maybe control the water off its coast in the middle east, it's all unclear how far the palestinians want to go now with their upgraded observer state status here, ashleigh? >> so, our man at the u.n. is a

woman at the u.n. and it's susan rice who has been big in the news lately with the controversy over what happened in benghazi but this was something different and she was very passionate when she spoke after that vote. characterize it for me. tell me what she said and why? >> yes. i've heard ambassador rice speak for four years here, and i guess i could just sense this was a more powerful and very stern in tone, though, she has spoken out, believe me, on libya, syria, and other things. she doesn't pull any punches, but she was the first to speak in reply to this historic vote from the u.s. chair inside the general assembly and she said, look, pushing a green button inside the general assembly hall is not going to achieve middle east peace, this resolution really does not create a reality of a state. there is no state for the palestinians on the ground. it's counterproductive, there will be more obstacles. i'm sure shue knew that many people would be watching not just in the middle east but also on capitol hill where she will face potentially a nomination battle which is already under way. >> all right, richard roth, live

for us at the u.n. in new york. thank you for that. and, by the way, the israeli government spokesperson called the u.n. vote on the palestinian authority, quote, political theater. but the palestinian authority chief negotiator says the new status eliminates israeli justifications for building settlements in the disputed areas of east jerusalem and the west bank. ♪ announcing the all-new 2013 malibu from chevrolet. ♪ with a remarkable new interior featuring the available chevrolet mylink infotainment system. this is where sophisticated styling begins. and where it ends? that's up to you. it's here -- the greatest malibu ever. ♪ who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%.

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shopping fdon't wait. coverage? open enrollment ends december 7th. now's the time to take action. call unitedhealthcare today. got a live scene for you in egypt right now, and as has become obvious to many, that's what tahrir square looks like when thousands of people descend upon it in the nighttime. at this point live there are angry crowds who are angry about their president, mohammed morsi and the new constitution that just was passed in that country. they're upset about what they consider a massive grab for power by the president. >> unfortunately this decision is against what i was expecting from him completely, and i think it's against the benefit and the good for the people and the country. >> the new constitution went

through after hours of haggling, and the draft is set to be presented to the president tomorrow. but it still needs to be approved by the people, and critics of the hasty nature of the vote say that this is an attempt by morsi's party, the muslim brotherhood, to hijack the constitution in that country. president morsi has promised egyptians that his decrees will go into effect just as soon as the new constitution is ratified in a public referendum. not far away but worlds away essentially. this is what syrians are waking up to many mornings, and syrians are waiting for this violence to end. they may be waiting a long time, though. for the last two days they have now been cut off from the outside world completely. there's no internet now available in syria at all. there's no telephone access at all.

there's a lot of power outages, and it is cold. so, they are effectively in a black hole, a cold black hole, and a frightening one. and it gets worse every day. syrian air strikes today hit rebel targets near the damascus airport, and all flights now have been grounded, that airport closed. the next step for the rebels is the friends of syria meeting in morocco. hard to think anybody being friendly with images like that. secretary of state hillary clinton will be at that meeting and actually may announce if the united states is formally going to recognize this new group of unified opposition members as actually representative of syrian people. >> we are doing what we can to support the opposition, but also to try to support those inside syria, particularly in the local councils who are committed to the kind of continuity in the

syrian governmental institutions so we don't see a collapse and disbandment of institutional forces that we know from our iraq experience could be extremely dangerous. cnn's ivan watson is live with us now from istanbul in neighboring turkey. ivan, a lot of people got a chill about this blackout effectively a communications blackout. do we know for sure that it is the government of syria that effectively cut its country off from the rest of the world, or is there something else afoot? >> reporter: we don't know exactly. government officials have been quoted suggesting this was a rebel sabotage, but some of the internet security experts that we talked to suggests that this must have been a centralized decision, and you've got one organization called cloud flare out of california that published this fascinating video which shows how the route to syrian upstream providers one by one were shut down all starting

after noon local time on thursday, effectively plunging 20 million syrians into internet darkness. now, it's the opposition that has made very effective use of the internet thus far, actually, using the internet to upload opposition videos, to youtube, get their voices out to the outside world. so, it doesn't seem like they would have much of an incentive to plunge syria into internet darkness. and despite the fact that the state internet providers went down, the opposition activists have still been getting their images out of friday, the traditional anti-government protests, via alternative methods of communication, satellite phones, for example. that we know the u.s. and the british governments have been supplying to activists. we've seen them out in the streets calling for the downfall of the syrian regime as they've done every friday for 20 bloody deadly months.

ashleigh? >> let's talk about the months ahe ahead, because there have been several significant recognitions coming for the new unified members, looking at britain, france, turkey, and the gulf cooperation council. they all said we believe the new group of rebels unified is the representative group, but the united states hasn't done it yet. are we going to, and what's holding us back? >> reporter: it's not clear entirely. this was a u.s.-backed initiative, this what's called shorthand syrian nional coalition. but here's one problem. not all of the groups inside syria, not all of the rebel groups, have agreed to recognize this political umbrella opposition group. and i think what's very disturbing is that we've seen some armed opposition groups in particular one that's called the nusra front that is a hardcore, islamist group that some have accused of having links to al qaeda that i've seen active in

broader and broader areas of syria and they've come out publicly denouncing and rejecting this western-backed syrian national coalition. so, whoever the western capitals support outside of syria, that may not correlate to what the fighters on the ground who are killing and dying in this uprising, they -- those fighters may not support this western-backed umbrella opposition group. and that could have very disturbing consequences in the weeks and months ahead. >> well, we'll see what happens when the secretary of state ends up in the friends of syria meeting in morocco. ivan watson, thank you for that. we do appreciate it. .. ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers...

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you have probably heard about ptsd. you probably feel like you have a fairly good grasp on what it is or at least the parameters of it. here's something we really don't know about ptsd, how to treat it, or at least how to treat it right. how really to get to the bottom of this horrible disorder that 7 million americans are suffering through. and then along comes dr. sanjay gupta to tell us that there is something out there that is really off the rails that may be working. have a look. >> some part of me was on guard.

it just wouldn't stop. couldn't shut it down. >> reporter: for rachel hope the mental agony began in childhood when she says she was abused and raped at age 4. as a grown-up, the smallest trigger, like the familiar smell even, would bring it all back. >> i would get very extreme stabbing sensations in my body, you know, and then, like, fixed vision -- visuals, like, being, for instance, raped. >> reporter: mental breakdowns, four hospitalizations, and along the way rachel tried almost every treatment in the book. >> i tried ndr, rapid eye movement therapy, hypnosis, gestalt, yell it out, scream it out, you know, nothing worked. >> reporter: and then she discovered an experiment run by dr. michael midhoffer, he's a psychiatrist in charleston, south carolina. >> this is the place where we do the study. this is where we meet with people and this is where we do the mdma sessions.

>> reporter: intense psychotherapy, including eight-hour sessions after taking a capsule of mdma, of extassy. listen closely. on this tape you can hear rachel along with dr. midoffer. >> keep driving, keep driving. >> i felt as if my whole brain was powered up like a christmas tree, all at once, voom! >> usually people did have very positive affirming experiences, but a lot of the time it was revisiting the trauma. it was painful, difficult experience, but the mdma seemed to make it possible for them to do it effectively. >> reporter: within weeks, rachel says, about 90% of her symptoms were gone. >> i don't scream. i don't have flashbacks anymore. >> reporter: and in results just published, dr. midhoffer says 14 of 19 patients were dramatically better more than three years later. >> the question is, okay, was this just a flash in the pan? did people just feel good from taking a drug? so the answer to that turned out

to be no, it wasn't just a flash in the pan for most people. >> reporter: now, of course, 19 people is still just a tiny study, but it is getting attention. laurie sutton was the army's top psychiatrist until she retired in 2010. >> i've certainly reviewed it, and the results look promising. it's, like, with the rest of science, we'll apply the rigor, we'll follow where the data leads. we'll leave our politics at the door. >> reporter: i point out that none of this means that street ecstasy is safe. apart from being illegal you generally don't know what you're getting, it's often contamina contaminated. pure mdma can cause a higher body temperature, it can cause dehydration. there's also cases where people overcompensate and actually die from drinking too much water. but in a controlled setting which is what we're talking about here, the evidence does seem to suggest it can be safe. similar studies are under way in europe and canada, and midhoffer is halfway through a study offering this treatment to combat veterans, firefighters and police officers. dr. sanjay gupta cnn reporting.

>> that is really amazing. and that's not the last of sanjay's research in to this as well. he's got a whole lot more coming up this weekend. if you want to tune in, some good stuff coming, saturday 4:30 p.m. eastern and if you miss it saturday, you got a second shot, sunday morning 7:30 a.m. ces of green giant vegetables it's easy to eat like a giant... ♪ and feel like a green giant. ♪ ho ho ho ♪ green giant part of a whole new line of tablets from dell. it's changing the conversation. ♪

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britta olsen is my patient. i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate, administering her medication, and just making her comfortable. one night britta told me about a tradition in denmark,

"when a person dies," she said, "someone must open the window so the soul can depart." i smiled and squeezed her hand. "not tonight, britta. not tonight." [ female announcer ] to nurses everywhere, thank you, from johnson & johnson. we are prepping for a big sunday night here at cnn. it's our live broadcast of cnn heroes, an all-star tribute. i think you know by now it salutes the top ten cnn heroes that you voted on and, of course, we named the cnn hero of the year, and it makes a lot of people feel really, really good.

marie da silva feels pretty good because she was a cnn hero in 2008. she lost 14 family members to aids and turned that loss around to build a school for aids orphans in malawi. our nishell turner is sitting live with her right now. welcome. >> reporter: hi, thank you, ashleigh. marie and i were just talking earlier that school is called the jackranda school that you founded. and ashleigh was telling us about some of the good work that you have been doing in malawi that led you to being one of our heroes in 2008. can you tell me, because we're gearing up for our big event on sunday here in los angeles, can you tell me, when you found out you were one of our honorees were, what was that like? what did you think? what kind of emotions did you feel? >> it was -- it was literally i can't even explain to you what it felt like, because i was -- you know, i'd never been, you know, had an award before like this. it was the best thing that you

can imagine, and it was excitement, and it was just loving, loving every minute of just hearing that, you know, that i was one of the top ten. >> reporter: and because -- and since hero you were telling me, because before you were a nanny here in l.a., but you were also doing your work with the jackranda school and helping the children in malawi get education, but it kind of exploded and now you've stopped being a nanny because the jackranda school has grown so much that you have to consenn trat on your work with that? yes? >> before heroes there were 230 children in my house, and straight away within six months i built a secondary school, today we have 412 orphans at the school. we have a physical science lab, we have a clinic built on the premises. things just changed. within the last couple of years from 2008 until today, the amount of stuff that has just

turned over is amazing. >> reporter: fantastic. >> amazing. literally the kids are going to college. the kids are graduating. the kids are -- i just came back from london, one of our kids, a 12-year-old boy met the queen. >> reporter: oh, my goodness. >> who would have known this? >> reporter: that is wonderful and all of this kind of exploded since 2008 you were one of our honorees. thank you for joining us and updating us and telling us your story. ashleigh, these are tstories tht we'll hear on sunday, 6:00, anders anderson cooper does a great job. i call it a four tissue event, but they are tears of joy. 9:00 p.m. eastern and 8:00 our preshow. >> i'm proud to breathe the same air as someone like marie. thank you, it's great. great to hear. and it's a great story. great event. everybody, make sure you can hear more of marie's story as well by tuning in to "cnn heroes sharing the spotlight" this sunday night 8:00 p.m. eastern and then following that 9:00 p.m. eastern it's the big event,

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we have never gone wrong when we expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody. >> may 14th, 2012. president obama cutting to the heart of his decision to openly back marriage equality. been a pretty pivotal year in the long and emotional battle over same-sex unions and this day could be quite a pivotal day. because today the supreme court, the ultimate decider of rights and rules in america, is deciding whether it is finally time to take a stand on gender-based marriage law. and just how big a stand to take. the country, of course, is divided. right now 30 states have their own constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. but nine states plus the

district of columbia allow men to marry men and women to marry women. that number grew by three alone just this month. those were voter referendums during the election. nationwide exit polls show slightly more voters than not say same-sex marriages should be legal. you see it there. 49% say yes. 46% say no. which in theory has absolutely no bearing essentially on anything that the high court decides, or does it? we may not actually even find out until monday whether the justices will decide to take the plunge or not into this latest series of cases, and while we wait, it gives us an option for a couple of questions to our justice correspondent joe johns who is smarter than many on this topic. here's how i want you to try to help navigate through the very sticky wicket. it's very, very complex stuff. we have two essential cases as i see it that the supreme court can decide to either rule on or not, the defense of marriage act

and then, of course, the proposition 8 in california. the overview on both of those and the significance of either ruling or not. >> right. you know, they could also decide not to decide which is an important thing you have to say, too. >> okay. >> but, you're right. one of the big questions here is the parameters of any decision. if the court decides to take a same-sex marriage case, ashleigh, it has options on how to decide. it can rule very narrowly, perhaps saying whether same-sex couples are entitled to certain benefits or not. could also make a sweeping ruling on equal protection grounds, weighing in to whether the defense of marriage act passed in 1996 violates fundamental rights by discriminating against same-sex couples. that would be a sweeping ruling. or in the case of proposition 8, it could just take up the question of whether a state constitutional right can be taken away once it's been grablt

granted. or they could decide not to do anything, a bunch of different bites of the apple that tell us how the justices think, ashleigh. >> some of the experts that watch it pretty closely, said if the court, if the high court wanted to just step in and put a toe into the water of this massive national debate, they may consider to look at doma, the defense of marriage act, and the particular case that has reached its chambers, and that case effectively is about benefits to couples -- >> right. >> -- who are already married and the federal recognition of such benefits, that it's not effectively going to change anything in the law of the land when it comes to people who want to gay marry, correct? >> absolutely. and i have to tell you there are actually ten different cases about eight of those have to do with doma, and underlying all of that is that question of benefits. people don't realize that when you get married, there are a whole bunch of financial things that happen just because you're married. and that right now happens more

often for, you know, male and female marriages as opposed to same-sex marriages because there are certain states that follow doma that say, no, you don't get the same benefits. you have a different tax structure because in these states we're going to treat you as single because you're, you know, same-sex and you're married. it's very complex and that's, you know, something the court eventually is very likely to have to decide. >> well, then, less myopic you would think the prop 8 challenge and just to sort of set that stage, again, because, again, it is very complex, california, and the voters there saying prop 8 means you cannot gay marry here. that was challenged at the trial level, and the judge said wrong. it's not fair. that went to the appellate level in the ninth circuit and the judge said wrong. now it's going to the justices. they have the option to say we're not touching it. that means the law of california

means you can marry anyone you want. or we are touching it. and we may rule either way. if they rule that gay marriage is legal in california, what are the implications for all of the other states, joe? >> well, it's the largest state in the country, and, of course, that could be huge implications for other states. but you also have to remember the court has the ability to say the case we're deciding only applies in this one instance. so, we're really talking about hypotheticals here, and there are million different ways this court could decide this case. and as we know just from the health care case, this is a very unpredictable supreme court. it's very difficult to figure out what they're going to do, you know, with that 5-4 split that happens from time to time. >> so, you're on duty all day, all night, all through the weekend, joe johns, because this is big stuff. thank you. thank you very much.

sorting through some very complex stuff. so, here's the deal if those justices walk away from prop 8 and say we refuse to hear this case, effectively that means it is once again legal in california to get married. almost immediately. so, what do you think it's like at the courthouse in san francisco? how do you think they are preparing for the, oh, i don't know, hundred thousand or so estimated gay couples, same-sex couples in that state? going to talk to someone who knows all too well what they're doing and that they're prepping for. this is how mommy learned...

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so, as we went to break we posed the question what if the supreme court decides not to take up the case of proposition 8 in california. that will effectively mean it is legal to get married to anyone you want, male, female, female, female, male/male in california which could also mean a rush at the courthouse in cities like

san francisco. and the san francisco city attorney dennis pereira knows that. he actually even filed the very first lawsuit that led to the marriage equality in that nation -- in the nation's most populous state, california. it also led to the stay which means nothing's been going on for quite some time in that state. he joins me live on the phone. so, dennis, i just want to ask you before we get to sort of the technicalities of what today can mean, the logistics of what this could mean, there are thousands and thousands of people who may want to get married monday. and how is san francisco's courthouse going to handle that? >> well, ashleigh, we have a lot of experiences, some might recall, with handling large crowds back in february of 2004. there were tremendous lines for a monthlong period here at city hall. but -- so we have experience with it. we've been working very closely with the clerk's office, and while there's a great deal of anticipation about what the possibilities are, we've been

taking steps to deal with the practicalities. just a couple days ago, i sent a letter to the ninth circuit court of appeals in the event that the supreme court denies stay for them to give us a 24 hours' notice about when they might lift the stay so we can prepare to have people deputized, work closely with our clerk's office, the sheriff's department, the police department from a public safety perspective to make sure we have all the logistics in place to handle what would be a momentous and very celebratory event. >> it could also be the other thing you're preparing for, too, and that could be a lot of protests and a lot of angry people i'm assuming outside that courthouse. have you got two sort of separate plans of attack? >> yeah, we do. you have to realize that the supreme court of california, it's -- its chambers are directly across the street from city hall, so at virtually every -- and the ninth circuit is only a block away. so, every time we've had a momentous marriage equality case

or hearing, we've had to deal both with the celebration and with the protests. and we work very, very closely with our police department and sheriff's department and other law enforcement authorities to make sure they're fully apprised of the legal goings-on so they can do their job and making sure they are keeping the peace and that's something we're doing here as we await to see what the supreme court will do. >> we started off the segment before you with a statistic, it was a poll taken during all of our election polling and the national polls suggest that 49% of americans are now in favor of legalizing gay marriage, while 46% are still opposed. it was not like that or at least those who, you know, voted in the referendum in your state for prop 8, the majority of californians said they didn't want that to happen in your state. they did not want gay marriage in your state. but that was, what, eight years ago, do you think things have changed now? do you think if that referendum were, again, to go to the people the numbers would be different? >> absolutely i do.

let's really take a look back and look where we've gone in 12 years. prop 22 in the year 2000 here in california that defined marriage as between -- existing only between a man and a woman. that was 60-40, okay? then in 2008, when this was on the ballot, it was 51-49 -- or 52-48 in favor of proposition 8. yet i think that what we've been doing is once you get to the hearts and minds and educate people, you change people's minds. and when they see their neighbors sharing life together, they understand that same-sex couples, you know, the world's not going to come to an end if someone gets married. they have the same concerns, educating their kids, putting food on the table as everybody else does, as straight couples do. and i think you see people's minds being changed and there's no doubt i believe we're on the right side of history and if you put it to referendum now here in california i think would you see the numbers reversed. >> i think there's definitely four or five people on the supreme court who agree with

you, but then i think there's about four or five people on the supreme court who don't, so this is going to be just fascinating and we're going to be all eyes and all ears. i look forward to speaking to you again at some point as well once we have some kind of determination. thanks, dennis. >> thanks, ashleigh. we should know, by the way, by monday, really, we should know by monday whether or not the supreme court is going to take up the same-sex marriage issue this term. of course, we'll have it right here live on cnn. c-max has a nice little trait, you see, c-max helps you load your freight, with its foot-activated lift gate. but that's not all you'll see, cause c-max also beats prius v, with better mpg. say hi to the all-new 47 combined mpg c-max hybrid. i have a cold... i took dayquil, but i still have a runny nose.

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for the first time the world has heard from army private bradley manning. it happened yesterday. is he the man charged with the largest leak of classified material in american history. he is also accused of downloading thousands of classified documents while serving in iraq. then just handing them over to the website we all know as wikileaks. those documents, of course, end the up on-line. loads of eyeballs saw them that

perhaps should not have. wret, his lawyers say he should go free. really soon. they say he has already been punished muff just since being held. that arrest back in 2010 medical now has been long and painful, they say. cnn's pentagon correspondent chris lawrence joins me now. what exactly does bradley manning hi that the government should do and why does he think that perhaps his treatment should lead to his release before any kind of trial. >> to your first question, they would like some of the charges to be thrown out. that's not likely. as a backup, they would like to see some credit for some of that mistreatment applied to whatever sentence he may get if found guilty or if he pleads. what he is saying is sort of really giving us our first real description from him of what he has gone through personally. he says when he talked about that first prison where he spent a couple of months in kuwait, he said it was like a dark, lonely

hole. he said i thought i was going to die in that cage. then he was transferred to qauntico where he says it reminded him of that cage in kuwait. he basically said that he spent about 23 hours of the day by himself not seeing anyone else. he wasn't allowed to sleep during the day. at one point he had to sleep naked at might and then the next day stand naked because of something he had said to a guard. he is saying all of this should be taken into account when talking about how long he should stay in prison. >> well, you know, i guess many speaking on behalf of the government, i'm sure that the cross-examination of him is going to lead to things like you did say that you were at risk of suicide and these are sort of the protocols that we go through for people who are at risk of suicide, no? >> that's right. he has been under cross-examination now for about the last two or three hours. prosecutors are trying to poke

holes in his sincerity. that he is saying, you know, this mistreatment was so bad that i thought about killing myself, but they're pointing to some of his sashgassic answers to questions about suicide while he was locked up. at one point when he was asked about it, he described suicidal thoughts in terms of always thinking, never acting, sort of a sarcastic take on it. they say manning was delivered the books that he wanted to read, that he didn't have a steel door. his cell had bars so he could see some sunlight coming down. now what you are getting is these two competing theories of how he was treated, and all that could factor into how much credit he is given for the time that he has already been locked up. >> or if he is given the credit at all, i would imagine as well. chris, i know you are still on it, because that hearing continues, so keep bringing us the details. it's fascinating stuff. back in just a moment. use your y wants that pink castle thing.

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there were two winners in wednesday's massive jackpot, that powerball jackpot, and while they hit it big, guess who else did? the tax man. you are not going to believe the numbers i'm about to tell you. whether these people take their prize in the lump sum or payout, that annual annuity that goes on and on and on, they will be taxed at the highest federal income tax rate. 35%. so if it's taken as a lump sum, the winners will get $192.5 million each before taxes. after federal and state taxes, the arizona winner will only take home $114 million. the missouri winner will get about $117.5 million. if you are wonder whatting that tax bill is in arizona, that guy or girl, is going to pay $78.5 million to the tax man. ouch. the missouri fellow, or woman, will pay $75 million to the tax

man. i'm sure they'll be okay with that really. trust me. here's some perspective too as well. as we get set to dive over the fiscal cliff, january 1st and our tacks jump up, if these people had won just another month and a half later, guess what would have happened? their winnings would have been slashed by $8 million more, so there's the silver lining in the tax cloud. speaking of clouds, man, is it a mess on the west coast. it's just no let-up in the rain. karen mcginnis is here to talk about the pacific storm that are battering the region. the rain just keeps coming and coming. it's expected to dump four to eight inches on places that have already been deluged with six inches. yes. that spells flooding, doesn't it? >> it really does. this will be the big concern as we head towards the weekend. up and down the west coast from seattle to san diego, they're being impacted by fierce winds, heavy rain, and it looks like

the mountains, a pretty good snowstorm expected in some areas as well with up to three feet possible. san francisco getting a deluge of visibility only a fraction of a mile with light rain and the temperatures only in the 60s right now. if you are going in and out of the san francisco bay area, this is what you have to look forward to. check with your airline. already a ground delay. three and a half hours because of the messy weather situation. southern california not going to be as impacted as the rest of the state, but nonetheless, right along central cal sxal into central oregon this is where we're looking at perhaps some of the heaviest rainfall totals. look at the sustained winds. between 25 and about 35, but some of those higher peaks are expecting some wind gusts right around 120 miles an hour, and they're saying, well, that will decrease tonight to around 80 or 90